


Orange County

by darlingargents



Category: IT (1990)
Genre: Canon-Typical Memory Loss, Domestic Fluff, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fluff, Graphic Depictions of Hugging, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-26 16:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20932904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/pseuds/darlingargents
Summary: After the Losers defeat It, Eddie Kaspbrak and Richie Tozier go west.





	Orange County

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).

Eddie’s inhaler is doing nothing to take It down. It is reaching for him, and Eddie knows, with a horrifying clarity, that he’s going to die, that he has minutes or seconds left—

And something breaks in the deadlights, and Richie is pushing him out of the way. His arm hits the ground so hard that he can feel it breaking and he screams, half in pain and half in terror; he’s certain, somehow, that he was supposed to die, and Richie is going to pay for changing it. Richie is lying half across him and It is coming toward them, and Eddie closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to watch Richie die. He reaches for Richie’s hand with his good arm, holds it tight. He feels something brush across his lips, and he opens his eyes, astounded—

And then Bev’s silver bullet finds home.

+

“I don’t want to move back in with my mom,” Eddie says, back in the hotel, his arm in a makeshift sling. Richie flings an arm around his shoulders, ruffles his hair, carefully avoiding the break. Eddie feels like he’s eleven again and it’s not a wholly unpleasant experience.

“Spaghetti man, I agree wholeheartedly. You need to see the world! Have a good time! Come to LA with me. I have a spare room.”

Eddie should say no. Eddie should be calling his mother.

(He can still feel Richie’s lips on his.)

Eddie calls the airport to change his flight.

+

Eddie hasn’t travelled much in his life. Well, that’s a bit of an understatement. He’s never been outside of New England and New York for longer than a week, and even so, he’s never been south of Virginia or west of Chicago. Almost all of that was for work.

So touching down at LAX, Richie by his side (still asleep, as he was five minutes after takeoff) is an entirely new experience. Richie gets his car and takes Eddie’s bags for him (“You’re my guest, Spaghetti-man, and I’m a perfect gentleman.”) and he drives them both back to his house. The drive is all palm trees and hideous traffic, heat shimmering off the pavement. Richie yells obscenities out the window at other drivers and Eddie definitely doesn’t laugh.

The house is more of a mansion: massive, right on the beach, a gorgeous view of the sand and sea out all the windows. Richie grabs two beers out of the fridge, ice-cold, and they sit on the porch, watching the waves. Eventually, Richie goes back inside — showbiz, as he says with a sigh, never rests — and Eddie stays, alone, watching the horizon.

(He’s not really sure he’s awake. It feels like a dream. He’s in LA, with Richie, without his mom — this doesn’t feel real. But somehow it is.)

+

He doesn’t remember how they met.

Richie doesn’t, either. He asks, that night, before he goes to bed. Richie makes a joke and then pauses, going pale. “I don’t remember,” he says. “Why don’t I remember?”

“Me neither,” Eddie says, and reaches for his inhaler before forcing his hand away. He doesn’t need it. He doesn’t.

He doesn’t remember how they met. He doesn’t remember why he left New York. He doesn’t remember his arm breaking, or how Richie kissed him — he’s not even sure that’s real. It’s slipping away like water between his fingers, and he’s afraid.

He remembers Richie, though, which might be the most important thing. His arm is almost healed, and he’s forgetting more and more about his mother by the day — but he remembers Richie, remembers his stupid glasses and motormouth and bad ideas, and that’s what matters.

+

Richie’s guest room is beautiful and as sterile as a hospital room. He should love it. He doesn’t.

As he tries to sleep — slowly, fitfully — in a bed that feels far too big, he can’t stop thinking about crossing the impossible gulf between their rooms. The guest room and the master are separated by a hallway. He could stand up, knock on the door, and—

And what? Nothing. He tells himself, over and over, that nothing has happened; that the memory he has of Richie kissing him isn’t real or doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter that he’s afraid to close his eyes, that he doesn’t want to be alone in a bed.

It doesn’t matter until he wakes up screaming.

He can’t remember the dream the second he wakes. Just the feeling: a terror so deep and ancient that it might kill him. He’s still screaming, and it takes him longer than it should to realize that someone’s in the bed with him, their arms around him.

He stops screaming, mourns his lost vocal chords, and opens his eyes.

Richie is on the bed, shirtless, both arms wrapped around him.

“Oh,” he says, “hello, Rich, how’s it going?” And everything goes black again.

+

He wakes up in the morning with the sun glaring off the ocean and through his window, and with Richie asleep beside him. He rolls over, sees Richie sleeping with his mouth open and his glasses half on, and proceeds to have a very quiet anxiety attack. His inhaler is in his jacket pocket and he’s trying to figure out how to get out of bed without Richie waking up so he can get it and maybe leave the country when Richie groans in his sleep, one hand fluttering over his face. He rolls over and, best Eddie can tell, wakes up when his glasses jab him in the eye.

“Goddamn it,” he says, and sits up, pulling off the glasses and tossing them onto the bed. “Guess I fell asleep. Sorry, Eds.”

“I thought you had contacts,” Eddie manages. His heart rate is slowing, he thinks, and he’s breathing a little easier now; Richie’s not being weird about this, which is good. (It’s not weird. Right?)

“Didn’t exactly have time to put ‘em in when I heard you screaming in the middle of the night. Emergency glasses. Awful stuff. Sorry you had to see that.”

“I’m so sorry about waking you up. I had a nightmare, I guess, I don’t really remember.”

Richie rubs his eyes, and Eddie is struck with the intimacy of the moment: him, in his silk pajamas, and Richie in his boxers, in bed with sunlight streaming over them. It’s almost more intimate than spending the night together. They’re seeing each other in full daylight. “Honestly, pal, I’ve been having the same thing. I meant to go back to my room, but as soon as I was here, I just… fell asleep. Best sleep I’ve had since… I honestly don’t remember.”

Eddie hadn’t thought about it like that, but it’s true for him as well. He’s spent years looking for the right pill or therapy for his sleep issues, and nothing worked. He hasn’t this well-rested… well, ever, in his adult life.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I can make coffee? As an apology.” He can almost hear his mother’s distant voice, disdainfully explaining the negative impacts of caffeine. But it’s growing fainter by the second.

Richie claps him on the back. “No need to apologize, but I’ll certainly have a coffee with you.”

+

Somehow, unexpectedly, it’s the start of a routine for the next few months. Eddie’s arm is completely healed a couple weeks in, and he starts to job-search, but without any real urgency; he has a fair amount in savings, his company is still running just fine without him, and Richie tells him, over and over, that he’s welcome for as long as he wants. He makes coffee in the morning and dinner sometimes; they go out in LA and Richie shows him the city. Richie gets a movie role and when he’s working, Eddie drives around in Richie’s convertible and luxuriates in the sun.

Strangest of all, the events of the first night keep happening. Eddie falls asleep in the guest room, wakes screaming, and Richie comes over and falls asleep next to him. A few times, it’s even the reverse — Eddie’s woken by Richie, though he does less screaming and more sobbing. Eddie’s always been a light sleeper, but when he’s woken by Richie, it’s always so quiet that he can barely hear it when he tries. Nonetheless, he crosses the hallway and climbs into Richie’s bed, and they both make it through the rest of the night sans nightmares. (It’s a little odd, when he thinks about it, that he’s woken by such a quiet sound — when he’s drifting off to sleep, he sometimes wonders if it _ means _ something.)

Sometimes Eddie goes to Richie’s work and watches him on movie sets. Sometimes when Richie has the day off they drive into the desert and up into the mountains, where they can watch the sea and the city below them. They have dinner at expensive restaurants and sometimes Richie has to sign a few autographs while Eddie eats and thinks up ways to make fun of him for it later.

It’s at one of these dinners, a few months after… whatever it was that brought them together (they don’t talk about it, and Eddie’s pretty sure Richie’s memory is just as impaired as his) that something changes. They’ve been at the restaurant, a cozy little place mostly known by locals, and Richie is eating with one hand and making grandiose gestures with the other. He’s telling a story from his early days in the TV industry, something about a schedule conflict that led to him going on live television with his shirt buttoned up wrong and doing his very best to kill time for ten minutes, and Eddie’s not even eating, just watching him. It’s ridiculous, over-the-top, filled with Voices and perfect comic timing, and Eddie thinks that he never wants this to end, the thing they have going. Whatever it is, it’s perfect.

He’s just getting to the good part of the story — Eddie hasn’t heard this one before, but he knows Richie, and knows how to tell when he’s ramping up for a finish — when someone taps him on the shoulder. A young woman with wild hair and too much eyeliner.

“Are you Richie Tozier?” she asks.

A flash of annoyance passes over Richie’s face as he glances at Eddie, and it feels like a secret, seeing him apologize with his eyes before he grins widely, turning on the charisma, and turns to the woman. “I am indeed, miss. You lookin for an autograph?”

“Yeah, actually, if it’s not too much trouble?” She’s blushing a little as she hands over a poster — an early release poster for his new movie. Richie pulls out a pen and signs it with a flourish. Eddie takes another bite of his food as Richie adds a couple of personal touches — it’s going cold, since he was paying more attention to Richie than eating.

“No trouble at all,” he says, capping the pen and putting it back in his jacket pocket. “I would like to get back to my dinner, if that’s alright.” He says it all with a winning grin, so she can’t possibly feel offended. She blushes more, and turns to go, catching Eddie’s eye for a moment. She stops and turns back to Richie.

“Who’s this?” she asks, with a gesture at Eddie. He blinks, his fork halfway to his mouth. Usually fans don’t notice him. He’s as good as a piece of furniture when they’re in public together, and he likes that just fine.

Richie is surprised, too; his eyebrows shoot up and it takes him a moment to speak, which isn’t usually the case for him. “This is my good friend Eddie Kaspbrak,” he says, “new in town. My guest. Old friend.”

A look of sudden understanding passes over the girl’s face, and she smiles secretively at both of them. “Oh, I see. Of course. Have a lovely day, Mr. Kaspbrak, with your… friend.” She winks at Eddie, and he stares in bewilderment as she turns and walks out of the restaurant, rolling up her poster as she goes.

“What was that?” Eddie asks when he can find the words. He looks away from the restaurant door and back to Richie, expecting to see a mirror image of his own confusion, and is surprised to see him going red and avoiding Eddie’s eyes.

“Nothing, Spaghetti-man, just fans being fans.” He takes a few more bites of his food and downs the rest of his cocktail in one long drink. “Normal stuff.”

“You’re not acting normal.”

“Of course I am. Where was I? Right, so the camera guy is frantically signalling for me to shut up, and of course I don’t notice, I’m too invested—”

“Rich.”

“I’ve got a hula skirt on, found it somewhere on the set, and they’re telling me to stop taking my shirt off because this is prime-time and the children aren’t ready for this yet—”

“Beep-beep, Richie.”

That shuts him up quick, and he goes even redder. He goes for his glass, realizes it’s empty, and grabs Eddie’s water and takes a quick drink.

“What was she talking about?”

“Well, Eds…” He reaches up as if to fiddle with his glasses and drops his hand a second later. He sighs. “Well. I think she came to the conclusion that we’re… in a relationship.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t mean anything, of course, you can still stay with me and nothing has to change, I’m sorry I put you in this position. I can help you move out if you’d rather. I’m so sorry, Eddie, really, it doesn’t mean anything but if you’re at all uncomfortable—”

“It’s fine,” Eddie says. It’s not, not really — he can hear his rapidly beating heart in his chest, he’s sweating under his suit jacket, he desperately needs his inhaler, even if it’s just water — but somehow, it’s not an entirely bad feeling. It’s almost good. It’s almost excitement, a kind he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager. “Richie, it’s alright. Would you like to head home?”

Richie nods and signals for the cheque.

\+ 

The ride home, in Richie’s convertible, is silent. It’s dark out and there are no stars in the sky, but Eddie — riding shotgun — watches the streetlights go by in a haze of brightness and thinks it’s close enough. It’s windy, and when they pull into Richie’s driveway, he can hear the thundering crash of waves against the beach.

Eddie doesn’t bring it up. The silence between them isn’t uncomfortable, it’s tense and full of possibility. He doesn’t want to break it with an ill-timed word, but he’s sure Richie feels the same way, so a part of him thinks they might be destined to silence forever. (Not Richie, surely, silence and Richie have never been in the same zip code, but it feels like that anyway.) He goes straight up to the guest room and goes to stand by the window. It’s shaping up to be a bit of a windstorm: the palm trees are whipping in the wind and the waves are white and choppy, so loud that he can hear them from inside.

He’s not quite sure what he’s waiting for, until there’s a knock on the door.

He opens it, and before he can say anything, Richie is kissing him.

It’s almost like going into shock. He feels almost out of his body. He can feel Richie’s hands on his face, the roughness of his beard and mustache against him, the trembling in his body.

Before he has time to think of how to react, Richie’s breaking away from him. “I’m sorry,” he says, and turns around to go back into his room. He closes the door, and Eddie’s standing in the hallway alone.

+

He goes to sleep a few hours later. His mind is spinning in so many different directions that it takes him a long time to fall asleep, and when he does, the usual nightmares haunt him. But they don’t wake him up — Richie’s crying does.

His eyes snap open. The clock says 4:12 in the morning. The storm has only gotten louder. It feels like a dream as he gets out of bed, crosses the hall, and opens Richie’s door. He’s kicked off his sheets and he’s crying into his pillow, shaking like a leaf, still asleep. Eddie climbs into the bed beside him and wraps both arms around Richie’s back.

Richie twitches in his arms, a shudder than runs through his whole body, and he rolls over, pulling out of Eddie’s arms. “I—” he says, and stops, completely lost for words. Eddie will have to mark the day in his calendar. Later.

Now, he wraps both his arms around Richie and pulls him closer. Richie’s tense for a moment, and then he relaxes. Tentatively, he returns the hug, and buries his head in Eddie’s shoulder. They stay like that for a long, unending moment, and then Eddie pulls together all the courage he’s ever had, and pulls back. When Richie lifts his head, Eddie kisses him.

He can taste tears on Richie’s lips, toothpaste and the faintest bit of vodka from his drink at the restaurant. There’s alarm bells in the back of his mind telling him that this is insanely unsanitary, that he’ll get a disease and die, and he pushes it down. He kisses Richie, and he doesn’t care about anything else.

When they break apart after what feels like an eternity, Richie looks utterly dazed. Eddie feels a little thrill at the knowledge that he — he, Eddie Kaspbrak, safety-conscious, utterly boring — made Richie look like that.

“I love you,” Richie says, and Eddie just smiles. Any other time it would feel like those words changed everything. Right now, they feel inevitable.

“I love you, too.”

+

Eddie moves out of the guest room, but other than that, nothing really changes. Just little things. He still makes coffee in the morning, but Richie kisses him as he takes it, and before he leaves for work, and a million times in between if he’s in an affectionate mood. They go out for dinner and hold hands under the table. Little things.

For the first time in his life, Eddie is… happy. Actually happy, nearly all the time. There’s nothing he would change about his life, and he thinks he’d be happy to be here, on the ocean, far away from Maine and New York and his old life, forever.

And he thinks Richie agrees.


End file.
